SIR FRED
Radio 4, 1.30pm
“Choreography is my whole being, my whole life . . . I pour into it all my love, my frustrations.” It looks as if Sir Frederick Ashton, unlike so many of the rest of us, went into the right trade, then. The great choreographer was born on September 17, 1904, so while the timing of this centenary tribute might have caused him excruciating pain, he would have been pleased by its content. Alastair Macaulay does the honours.
THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
Radio 4, 6.30pm
And so it came to pass that more than a quarter of a century after the original changed the face of comedy as we knew it, the dramatisation of the last three books in Douglas Adams’s sci-fi masterwork are here to delight us over the next six weeks. (Guess who’ll be wanting the boxed set for Christmas?) Not only that, but the original voices have gathered again to bring to life Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Marvin the Paranoid Android and the rest. All, that is, save the Voice of the Book and Slartibartfast, where William Franklyn and Richard Griffiths take over from the deceased Peter Jones and Richard Vernon.